


all things turn to rust by and by

by LuckyDiceKirby



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-17
Updated: 2016-05-17
Packaged: 2018-06-08 14:54:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6859594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LuckyDiceKirby/pseuds/LuckyDiceKirby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ibex has had a pretty good run of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all things turn to rust by and by

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers through episode 39 of Counterweight. EVERYTHING'S FINE.
> 
> Title's nabbed from [The Sermon of Sister Rust](http://notquitereal.bandcamp.com/track/the-sermon-of-sister-rust).

After he hires the Chime to find Maryland September, Ibex returns to Counterweight.

Cassander Berenice doesn't know how good they have it. It's a sudden thought, and a vicious one: for a moment Ibex wants nothing more than to return to the Kingdom Come and smash Cassander's head in with their own rifle, to scream at them as he does it. Sokrates is alive, despite all the odds, and Cassander doesn't even want to send them a message.

Cassander still has a brother, and Ibex never will again.

Not that Ibex ever had a brother. But Attar did, once. Cassander doesn't deserve it, Cassander doesn't appreciate the gift, Cassander never fought on the front lines in the goddamn war.

Cassander isn't still fighting one.

Ibex, alone in the medbay, a drone carefully rewiring his jaw, has no idea how much of this is Righteousness and how much of this is grief. 

He hadn't wanted Quintin to become a candidate. It hadn't seemed fair. But the Diaspora needed him, as they'd needed Ibex.

If Ibex had done his fucking job right the first time, they wouldn't have needed Quintin at all. If everyone had just listened to him--if Sokrates and Jace and Addax had all just done what he’d said, then maybe--

Is that Righteousness, or Ibex, or grief? 

Probably, Ibex thinks, it’s been a long time since those have been different things at all.

Jerboa hadn't listened to him, either. Jerboa thought that Grace was going to save them all. Jerboa, with the gun that Ibex had given him, with his falcon of a Divine, Jerboa had looked at all his options and decided that Grace's path was the right one. 

Quintin always was a little naïve. 

The drone finishes its work on Ibex's jaw. Ibex stands, slowly, and kicks over a single chair, the metal screeching out a satisfying clang. He allows himself that, takes a moment to ball up his fists and close his eyes and wish that he could scream. 

Afterwards, Ibex straightens his shoulders, pulls his sunglasses from his pocket, and goes to speak to Grace. 

-

Later, after Ibex speaks with Sokrates, after they do the thing that they do, he can't help but think about what it must have been like, growing up Apostolisian royalty. Must be easy to be so stubborn when you're a prince. Or maybe the Berenices are just like that.

Maryland, now, she would tell him something about pots and kettles. But Maryland isn't here.

Ibex wonders, sometimes, if he shouldn't have killed Sokrates ten years ago. They might prove useful, yet, if they'll deign to act in their own best interest for once. But Ibex has learned, over the years, that he can never trust others to see things as they should be seen. Sometimes it's just a matter of showing them the way, but people like Sokrates, people like Vicuna, people like the Chime--people like that can never be convinced.

God save Ibex from people and their principles. 

Times like these, Ibex misses Maryland like a limb. 

He thinks about calling her. Not even calling her. Just sending a message. It isn't safe. It isn't safe and he shouldn't need her, anyway: that's what Righteousness has always thought.

And he doesn’t need her. Ibex doesn't need anyone--he hasn't ever needed anyone, human or Divine, not as Candidate Ibex and not when he was still Attar Rose, young and in love. 

But it was always nice, to have someone to talk things over with. 

He hasn't seen Maryland in--since before the last time he saw Jerboa on Vox. Years. 

He can only hope it wasn't a mistake to trust the Chime, that Maryland will live long enough that Ibex can see her again. Just one last time. 

What he told Sokrates was no lie. It remains to be seen, but Ibex can feel it in his bones: he'll have a good run of it. The Diaspora--the entire Golden Sector--will remember Candidate Ibex, after it's all done. 

Of course he knows he can trust the Chime. They're a lot of things, not all of them good, but they get things done. And Ibex weighed his options. He knew he was doing the right thing.

He always does.

-

Ibex has never been to Kesh. He didn't meet Maryland until she'd already left it, but sometimes she would tell him about it, over dinner or lab reports. 

"It's quiet there," she said, a touch of wonder in her voice. "Nothing like September. There's no Mesh." She laughed. "It's hard to describe it in a way that doesn't make it sound awful, to anyone who wasn't born there. But it's like--it feels like a city blanketed in snow, but always. That kind of quiet. It's calming. Some days I wish I could go back."

"So why did you leave, then?" Attar had asked. 

Maryland tipped her head back, looked up at the ceiling. "Well, why did you come here, so far from the heart of the Diaspora? You love it, don't you?"

"Sure," Attar said. "Doesn't mean I don't think it could be better."

Maryland raised an eyebrow at him. "You think everything could be better. But you're a patriot, and yet you're still here, setting up shop on this rock with me. Sometimes the places you love aren't the places you need to be."

"Or," said Attar, "maybe there are things I love more than the Diaspora."

Maryland rolled her eyes and kissed him on the cheek.

These days, Ibex knows all too well that Maryland was right. He thinks of Jerboa, dying alone after he called to his brother for help, of Maryland, working so hard before finally leaving the Institute, of Jace Rethal, alone in a simulation for ten years, while outside Addax Dawn and Tea Kenridge lived on without him.

Of himself, leaving September for the last time, so that he could do what needed to be done.

-

Once, Maryland and Ibex had a talk about perspective. Managing the operations of the Righteous Vanguard, preparing for Rigor, Ibex can't help but think of it.

"You think you see everything, Attar, but your focus is too narrow," she told him then. Properly she should have called him Ibex, but telling Maryland things like that never ended well. It was one of the things Ibex liked about her. "You only see what you see. What Righteousness lets you see."

Ibex laughed. "So I should be seeing things that I don't see," he said. "Sure. Sounds about right."

"Isn't that what perspective is? Seeing things beyond your own view?"

"Wouldn't know," said Ibex. "Wrong Divine. You'd have to ask Eland, they're the one piloting Perspective these days."

Maryland ignored him. "Righteousness, now, though," she said, warming to the topic. "Righteousness is a narrowed focus in the extreme."

"But Righteousness is everywhere," he said.

"And everywhere, Righteousness sees the same damn thing."

Ibex sighed, but there was a smile in there, too. Maryland flicked a carrot top at him. "Are you going to help me with dinner or not?" she asked. Laughing, Ibex did.

It'd be a shame, he thinks now, if there really was something that he'd missed after all. Hell. He almost missed Rigor. But he'll live long enough to fix his mistakes. He has to. 

If Ibex is gonna die, well. It'd be nice to do it with someone who knows him. Maybe the only person left who does. He looks out of the observation deck of the Seventh Son, watches the stars, and wonders if they'll still be there in a year, or ten, or a hundred.

Maryland would say he's still thinking too small, or too big. Maryland would say the stars are gonna burn out someday, anyway. But Maryland isn't here. So Ibex turns away from the stars, puts away his regrets, and goes back to work. 

And down on September, Rigor rises up.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm sad about friends at the table always, find me on [tumblr](http://luckydicekirby.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/luckydicekirby) and cry with me about it


End file.
